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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26325424">Death's Dominion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeverusTheKnight/pseuds/SeverusTheKnight'>SeverusTheKnight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, F/M, The Deathly Hallows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:29:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,351</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26325424</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeverusTheKnight/pseuds/SeverusTheKnight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Death leads us all on a merry chase. Ask not who wins, lest you lose.</p>
<p>The Potters witness tragedy, and responsibility hangs like a dagger over the heads of Lily Potter and her son, Harry.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Canon Relationships - Relationship, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Death's Dominion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I expect this story to reach a hundred thousand words. Will be updated at least once a month.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>
<b>1</b> Invisible Hopes</h1>
<p>
  <em>Dear Professor Dumbledore,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Thanks for sending over a birthday cake for Harry. I’m sad no one could be here, not even Miss Bagshot. We’re a bit claustrophobic, but fine otherwise. James has taken to walking in the yard with a passion. He has also been pestering me to invite you over so he can tell you how he escaped all those potential detentions.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Lily</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>P.S. The cake was delicious</em>
</p><hr/>
<p>There was a visitor at the Potters’ house in Godric’s Hollow.</p>
<p>“James?”</p>
<p>James, passed out on the sofa in the sitting room, got up with a jolt, wand in hand, and moved to the door. The young man’s hair looked even more unkempt than usual. He wiped the drool off his chin with his sleeve and pointed the wand at the door.</p>
<p>“I was in the bath! What is it?”</p>
<p>“I think I left a magazine there. Care to open the door?”</p>
<p>Passphrase verified, James opened the door to a tall, elderly man wearing robes of deep pink streaked with purple. He wore a similarly-colored pointy hat on his head. Albus Dumbledore beamed at James, but James did not return the gesture. He let him in, stifling a yawn.</p>
<p>“Thanks for coming over, Professor. I have a lot to talk about, and something to show you. I couldn’t put it in a letter,” said James as he followed Dumbledore to the sitting room, his cheeks red. Dumbledore, ever-attentive, did not let this go.</p>
<p>“How severe is it, James?” he asked, eyes twinkling over his half-moon spectacles.</p>
<p>“A sharp reprimand, followed by expulsion!” said James, and his laughter boomed in the small room. “Wait, you’ll see”</p>
<p>When James returned, Dumbledore was comfortably seated and conversing with the portrait of the Elder Potters, Fleamont and Euphemia. He turned at James’ footsteps, his face grave.</p>
<p>“I missed your parents’ funeral, James. I knew them half my life and was sorry to see them go. It had been too long since I met them in person, I should have arranged accordingly,” he sighed audibly, then continued - “The Potters’ cloak has been known to some residents of Godric’s Hollow since I was a boy-”</p>
<p>“You knew of it, even then?” Asked the portrait of Fleamont Potter.</p>
<p>“Quite so. I knew of it through Miss Bagshot. I know little about it otherwise, but seeing as it has been in the family for over a century, it must be something with intrinsic magic. A self-heating cloak, maybe?”</p>
<p>“It’s not a self-heating cloak, Professor,” said James, unfurling the cloak and handing it to Dumbledore. “I wanted to show this to you, because it might help us hide from Voldemort.”</p>
<p>Albus Dumbledore took the cue and retrieved a smooth wand from his robes. For the next four minutes, Dumbledore intently studied the cloak. He levitated it, spun it around, and cast a few detection spells on it. Then he stood up, and draped it around himself.</p>
<p>“<em>Fascinating</em>,” he said in a rather small voice, as he disappeared from the head down. He turned to James and asked, “How many people can this hide?”</p>
<p>“It has always been this large, so as many as one could fit.” James said, as he moved towards Dumbledore and put his hand where Dumbledore’s body should have been.</p>
<p>Dumbledore seemed stunned for a moment, and then his glasses dropped to the floor and broke with a tinkle. His mouth was open in a manner that was rather uncouth for a man who has experienced much. Surely, this would be one of the highlights of the year.</p>
<p>“<em>Great Merlin, it isn’t just an invisibility cloak!</em>” Dumbledore exclaimed, as he took one arm out and tried to move it through himself. Alas, he could not do so. His hand encountered his body while James’ had not. Dumbledore then entered a period of contemplative silence, punctuated by him raising his eyebrows and closing his eyes intermittently. When the daze broke, he looked like a man 20 years younger, his eyes holding childlike astonishment and his teeth visible in a joyful smile, looking nowhere in particular but his eyes still darting across the room.</p>
<p>“Um…” James was flabbergasted that a man as composed as Dumbledore could act like this. He was about to change the subject, but his eyes were rooted to Dumbledore’s as he witnessed what happened next -</p>
<p>“DO-YOU-UNDERSTAND-WHAT-THIS-<em>MEANS</em>?” screamed Dumbledore in a rather high-pitched voice, jumping up at each word. His hat launched in the air and poked Fleamont in the eye, and at the end his hands were up in the air, his boots raising a din. Having dropped the cloak to the floor, he promptly slipped on it and fell face-first on the floor.</p>
<p>James, lost for words, moved to help the old man get up off the floor. All the while he wondered how he could have been stupid enough to conceal his cloak from the one man who could have helped him.  </p>
<p>Dumbledore brushed his hand off brusquely and raised the cloak with care, dusting it with his hands and then running his wand over it. “This deserves respect that I have not shown it,” he completed, his eyes piercing James’. His enquiring gaze then shifted to the cloak, which he folded reverently and returned.</p>
<p>“Are you planning on taking the cloak with you, Professor? I thought you-”</p>
<p>“Yes, I will. But first, I wish to take advantage of your hospitality and think about it for a while. It is better protected under the Fidelius.”</p>
<p>“Is there something else, James?”Dumbledore asked, pushing his spectacles up his nose with a finger.</p>
<p>“Um.. yes, Professor. Remus and I used Hogwarts’ tracking charms to make a map that showed the location of every human in the Castle. Filch confiscated it in our sixth year. I don’t want it falling in the wrong hands. The password is ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good’.”</p>
<p>“I see Remus was never able to reign you in.”</p>
<p>James had no reply for this, and stared at the ground.</p>
<p>“Thank you for explaining you situation, James, but now I need to examine the cloak. Close the door behind you, please.”</p>
<p>Going up the stairs, James met Lily. She was still bleary and looked worse for wear, with deep circles under her eyes and a half-questioning, half-fearful expression on her face.</p>
<p>Assuring her that it really was Dumbledore, he recounted the events of the evening while helping her in the kitchen, to her annoyance. James knew next to nothing of housework and cooking, having been brought up in a wealthy family with old, doting parents and a house-elf. Lily found herself shooing him out and received reprimands in return about not disturbing the peace from her husband, for, in his opinion, the benefit of the two oldest and youngest people in the house.</p>
<p>Lily squared an imaginary wand at James’ forehead. “Don’t encourage me, Potter. You know I’m in a bad mood!”</p>
<p>James raised his hands in sullen defeat and sat down at the table with an empty mug in his hands. Lily turned suddenly, one hand on her hip, and cocked an eyebrow at him.</p>
<p>“Animagus?”</p>
<p>“You know I can’t Lily, you know-”</p>
<p>“I know it is a very big fact that you feel the need to hide for some reason. You have to tell him.”</p>
<p>“Remus made us promise. We can <em>never</em> let the professors know. It would break him,”</p>
<p>He then pretended to drink from the mug and looked dejectedly at the table.</p>
<p>Lily sighed. “I know the mug is empty, James.”</p>
<p>James set the mug down on the table and Lily walked over to sit in his lap and nuzzled her face in his chest. She started weeping as she wrapped her arms around him.</p>
<p>“I-I’m scared, James.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, I’m always here for you”</p>
<p>James set his chin on his wife’s head and the exhausted lovers descended into a half-conscious reverie filled with long-lost hopes and memories of futures that passed them by, and neither realized when the other entered sleep, with their love the support and the fear.</p>
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